I'm 37 and I just realized the reason I feel like I'm failing isn't because I made wrong choices — it's because I spent three decades chasing goals I adopted from people who were performing success, not living it

Three weeks ago, I was scrolling through LinkedIn at 2 AM, unable to sleep again, when I saw yet another post from someone my age announcing their latest promotion or startup exit. My chest tightened with that familiar mix of envy and self-loathing. Here I was, 37 years old, supposedly successful by most metrics, yet feeling like I'd somehow missed the boat entirely.

That's when it hit me. The problem wasn't that I'd made wrong choices. The problem was that I'd spent the last three decades chasing a version of success that was never mine to begin with.

The performance of success versus the reality

Think about the last time you saw someone you consider "successful." Maybe it was on social media, at a conference, or in a coffee shop. What did you notice? Probably the polished exterior — the confident body language, the expensive laptop, the casual mentions of their latest achievement.

But here's what I've learned after years of chasing those same markers: most people who appear successful are performing a role, not living a truth.

I spent my mid-20s feeling lost and anxious despite doing everything "right" by conventional standards. I had the degree, the respectable job prospects, the clear career path. Yet I'd lie awake at night wondering why I felt so empty. The disconnect between what I was supposed to want and what actually brought me joy was eating me alive.

The turning point came when I took a warehouse job shifting TVs in Melbourne. Talk about a reality check. Here I was with my psychology degree, loading trucks and wondering how I'd gotten so far from where I thought I'd be. But that humbling experience taught me something crucial: the gap between education and fulfillment is often wider than we think.

Inherited dreams and borrowed ambitions

Most of us never consciously choose our goals. We inherit them.

From our parents who want us to be stable. From our peers who define what's impressive. From society that has a very specific scorecard for winning at life. We absorb these expectations like secondhand smoke, barely noticing as they seep into our decision-making.

I realized I'd been living according to a script written by people who were themselves following scripts. My parents pursued security because they'd grown up without it. My friends chased prestige because that's what our university culture valued. And I? I was trying to be all things to all people, wearing myself thin pursuing goals that looked good on paper but felt hollow in practice.

When I made the decision to leave Australia and move to Southeast Asia, people thought I'd lost it. Why would someone walk away from conventional success to start over in a foreign country? But I wasn't walking away from success — I was walking toward my own definition of it.

The courage to disappoint

One of the hardest lessons I've learned is that living authentically requires the courage to disappoint people. Not out of spite or rebellion, but out of necessity.

When you stop chasing borrowed dreams, you inevitably let down the people who lent them to you. The parent who wanted you to be a doctor. The mentor who saw you as their protégé. The friend group that bonded over shared ambitions.

But here's the thing: those people aren't living your life. They're not the ones who have to wake up every morning and face the person in the mirror. They're not the ones who feel that gnawing emptiness when external success fails to translate into internal satisfaction.

Building my portfolio of digital publications wasn't part of anyone's plan for me. Nobody dreams of their kid becoming a blogger. But creating Hack Spirit and my other projects gave me something no traditional career path ever could: alignment between what I do and who I am.

Unlearning the achievement trap

The biggest myth I had to unlearn was that happiness comes from achievement. We're taught this from kindergarten — gold stars, honor rolls, acceptance letters, job offers. The message is clear: achieve more, feel better.

But achievement is like sugar. It gives you a quick high followed by an inevitable crash. You get the promotion and feel great for a week. You hit the revenue target and celebrate for a day. Then what? The goalpost moves, and you're back to feeling inadequate.

Real fulfillment, I've discovered, comes from presence, not performance. It comes from doing work that matters to you, not work that impresses others. It comes from growth that's internal, not external.

In my book, "Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego", I explore how Eastern philosophy offers an alternative to the achievement trap. Buddhism teaches that suffering comes from attachment — including attachment to external validation and borrowed definitions of success.

Finding your own scorecard

So how do you break free from three decades of conditioning? How do you stop performing success and start living it?

First, you have to get honest about whose voice is in your head when you make decisions. When you think "I should," whose should is it really? When you feel behind, behind according to whom?

Start paying attention to what actually energizes you versus what just looks good on your resume. Notice the difference between goals that excite you and goals that you think will impress others. Track what brings you joy versus what brings you likes on social media.

For me, this meant acknowledging that I cared more about freedom and creativity than stability and status. It meant accepting that my version of success might look like failure to some people. It meant getting comfortable with having less to prove and more to explore.

The messy middle of transformation

I wish I could tell you that once you realize you've been chasing the wrong things, everything instantly becomes clear. But the truth is messier.

There's a uncomfortable period where you've let go of old goals but haven't quite found new ones. Where you know what doesn't work but aren't sure what does. Where you feel simultaneously liberated and lost.

This is normal. This is necessary. This is where real growth happens.

During this phase, resist the urge to grab onto new external markers just to feel oriented again. Instead, sit with the uncertainty. Use it as an opportunity to listen to yourself, maybe for the first time in years.

What do you actually want when nobody's watching? What would you pursue if you knew nobody would ever find out? What would success look like if you were the only judge?

Final words

At 37, I'm finally learning to trust my own definition of success. It doesn't look like what I thought it would at 27, and it definitely doesn't match what others might expect. But it's mine, and that makes all the difference.

The goals I've adopted from people performing success led me to achievements that photographed well but felt empty. The goals I've discovered for myself might not impress anyone at a reunion, but they let me sleep soundly at night.

If you're feeling like you're failing despite checking all the right boxes, maybe the problem isn't you. Maybe it's the boxes. Maybe it's time to stop performing success according to someone else's script and start writing your own.

The path might be less clear, the progress less measurable, and the validation less forthcoming. But the fulfillment? That's real. And isn't that what we were chasing all along?